THE boss of the Met has hit out at the Police Federation for demanding Andrew Mitchell resign in the wake of the Plebgate affair.

Britain’s most senior policeman, Met Commissioner Sir ­Bernard Hogan-Howe, said the police union should not have called for the former Tory chief whip to stand down ­following his confrontation with diplomatic officers guarding Downing Street.

Speaking to MPs on the Home Affairs Committee yesterday, he said: “They explicitly got involved in asking for the resignation of a Government minister.

“For me that is too much. That is a decision for the ­Government to make or a prime minister to make. It is not for the Police ­Federation or police officers to get involved in calling for the resignation of a member of the Government.”

They explicitly got involved in asking for the resignation of a Government minister

Met Commissioner Sir ­Bernard Hogan-Howe

Sir Bernard was giving evidence about the Met’s inquiry into the now infamous affair.

Mr Mitchell quit as chief whip after admitting swearing when police refused to let him cycle through the Downing Street gates last September.

The officers made him use a pedestrian gate. There was a media firestorm when details of an official police log of the incident were leaked alleging the Conservative MP swore and called the officers “plebs”.

However, CCTV footage of the 60-second incident, made public last month, cast serious doubt on the police version of events when it appeared to show Mr Mitchell being ushered through the side gate without any sign of a blazing row. Another member of the diplomatic protection group, Keith Wallis, 52, from Ruislip, north-west London, who was not involved in the incident, was later arrested amid allegations that he sent an email to an MP, claiming to be a member of the public who witnessed the row as he was passing.

Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe has assigned 30 detectives to investigate how details of police records of the row ended up being leaked to two national newspapers. The team is set to quiz at least 800 diplomatic protection officers.

A file on the matter should be ready for prosecutors by February, he said yesterday.

Last night the Police Federation refused to respond to Sir ­Bernard’s comments.